Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

The month of July has brought many wonderful adventures for our family.  But one of the best ones was attending the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House.  After a Temple is built, but before it is dedicated the LDS Church opens the doors of the Temple to anyone who would like to come tour it.  We have had the privilege in six months to tour TWO Temple Open Houses here in Utah.  January was the Draper Temple Open House and now this one.  And the January before that we toured the Rexburg Temple Open House with our family.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to let our children see inside these beautiful Temples.

After the tour they have a room outside the temple set up with refreshments and missionaries in case anyone has questions.  This is usually the kids favorite part.  But they also have some beautiful artwork as well.

The three amigos, Jessica, Ashley & John.

It is a beautiful Temple set up on a hill on the West side of the Salt Lake Valley

My wonderful family I plan to spend Forever with.  Love you guys!

Another Birthday

The day after returning from Chicago I got to celebrate my birthday.  This year marks 42 years, crazy!  As any parent will probably agree, once you are a parent your birthday gets pushed down a few notches on the excitement meter.  Doing laundry, taking care of kids, cooking the kids food, all those things have to go on and you are usually the one to do it.  This year was no exception.  But I did receive a wonderful breakfast in bed (pictures not allowed).  After having been gone for five days it was nice not to have to fix the first meal home.  I think as Mark left for work that morning he said he was going to work so he could get some rest.  And he RAN out the door.

In the afternoon my girls were excited to bake me a cake.

The cake was from a box, but the frosting was made from scratch.  My favorite Debi Fields Chocolate frosting, yummmooo!  Mark and I snuck away for dinner at Macaroni Grill.  And when we returned we celebrated with the kids.

It really was a nice day.

Chicago, Chicago

Every July Pampered Chef has their National Conference for their Consultants in downtown Chicago.  This year marks the 7th time I've attended.  They amaze me every time.  We've stayed at the Sheraton, Hotel 71, Palmer House and the Hilton during different years.  This year was our first and I think our only time staying at the Hilton.  Too far away from shopping and fun.  Palmer House is our favorite, but they didn't offer it as a Conference Hotel.  So we will probably head back to the Sheraton next year.  This is the view some of the Consultants had from their hotel rooms

 Down on the 7th floor all we saw was a brick wall.  Not even worth taking a picture of it.

Wednesday we all flew in and had a little free time.  By the time we gathered 20 of us at the Grand Lux Cafe for dinner we didn't even sit down until 8 pm.  Grand Lux Cafe is a sister restaurant to Cheesecake Factory.  How can you go wrong?  The portions were huge and the food delicious.

But some of these nice ladies (Heather & Lee Ann) mentioned to our waitress that it was Lisa & I's birthdays.  We do share a birthday, but not for another 6 days after that.  They bring you a card and a candle.

But it was the best tasting birthday card I have ever received.

Thursday morning started way too early.  Cynthia and I took our little group of newbies over to the Conference Center to get them going on their Home Office Tour

The cute excited gal in the yellow shirt is Lisa.  She was the newbie from my downline.  She was really excited to be there even though it was early in the morning.  Her excitement made it more exciting for me to be able to show her around.  After we sent them off on their Home Office Tour, the Directors and above got to attend the Directors Only Event.  This year they had Jack Canfield come and speak.  It was fascinating and entertaining.  The best part is I learned how to tell when my kids are lying to me, watch out!

They then treated us to a wonderful Director Only Lunch!

Back row: me (Christine), Christy, Tonya, Cheryl
Front row: Shelly, Tina, Carol, Rachel

Then the conference officially began with our first class.  I would share what I learned with you, but then I would have to kill you, so I'd better not.  But they have some of the top consultants of the company teach classes and I always learn something from them.  We then have General Sessions and the first one they share with us the new product line that starts in September.  It is great, but once again, I can't share, sorry! You'll just have to come to one of my shows in September.  But everything they do is top notch.  They even entertain us with these

Crazy dancers that sing songs that stick in your head and won't go away for days.  Songs like "Take Charge, Take Action Now, we can show you how . . . "

Thanks to Lisa getting us close seats we got to be right up front to hear

Doris Christopher, the Queen and founder of The Pampered Chef.  She is very inspiring and an amazing woman.  I've had dinner with her before and she has wonderful values and really cares about all of us Consultants.

That night we were on our own for dinner.  Lisa and I broke away from the pack of women and went in search of Chicago Dogs.  But there were no dogs within walking distance of our hotel.  So we settled on Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.

All I can say is YUMMMMM!!!  If you have never had it, you have to try it.  There is nothing like it.

Thursday morning again began way too early.  And the day was filled with classes and General Sessions.

Here is part of our group waiting to get into the Career Club Lunch.  We are all sporting our very own Wahoo Women rings!

Hopefully this is the last year I sit at this table

with Tonya, Tina & Carol because I'm really close to hitting $300,000 in my Career Sales.  That is a heck of a lot of Food Choppers!  When I signed up 11 years ago I would have never guessed it would become long term for me.

Friday night was our Executive Dinner and each table had to pick a Disney Movie for the theme and dress up.  Our table was Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs.

Jessica and Ashley ended up sewing all the Dwarf hats for us.  They did a great job!

Another table from our group was Nemo

I think we were cuter then them.  But we still love them all!

I managed to get 1 picture of the 3 of us from my downline that attended

Thanks Christy & Lisa for coming.  You guys made it a lot of fun!

Saturday the Conference ended by 1pm so then we went in search of these

And found them at a Hole in the Wall place by the Palmer House Hotel where we ate them last year.  Once again, Chicago Dogs are an experience.  You can barely get your mouth around them they are loaded with so much stuff.

And what every you do, DO NOT ask for ketchup.  It is the equivalent to swearing.  I even ate mine with the pickle so I could have the whole experience.  Cheapest meal we had the entire trip!

After lunch we squeezed in some shopping.  Picked up some Garrett's Popcorn and even had time to crash in our Hotel.  But we were a little concerned when we returned to find these outside the hotel room.

Supposedly the Firemen went in the Hotel in full uniform with axes in their hands.  But we never smelled smoke and never saw anything and they were gone by the time we came back out.

We then headed to Navy Pier for the night.  Navy Pier is the total tourist attraction.  In my 7 trips I think I'd only gone twice before.  We hitched a Taxi with my upline Director, Shauna  so we had to get a photo of the three of us.

We got some great pictures of the Chicago Skyline as the Sun was setting.

After picking up some dinner we boarded this baby.

For an evening cruise on Lake Michigan.

 Shauna and Holly thought it was such a fun idea they tagged along with us.

We had beautiful views and the weather was perfect.  And we had the most comfortable view for the fireworks show they do every Wed and Saturday nights.

And after the Fireworks show we discovered the moon rising over the lake.  It was like no other moon I've ever seen.

The picture doesn't do it justice.

Sunday morning we finally got to sleep in a little, yea!  Pick up breakfast at the Corner Bakery and then made our way to the airport to return to our regular, very boring lives.

Did I mention I did all of this while Benny the Boot was still on.  One of the days at Conference I splurged and rented a scooter.  It was zippy and got me around really fast.  My foot did okay until the last day when we walked so much around town.  By the time we hit the airplane I was beat.  But it was worth it.  Here's to next year!

And The Fun Must End

My Aunt Jamie was kind enough to plan, organize and cook dinner for all 99 of us each night.  She kept telling us she loved it, so I hope it was true.  We didn't all fit into one room, but we tried.

We all got to be together to celebrate my Mom's 65th birthday.  Don't let the candles confuse you.  Aunt Jamie had a 3 & a 2 back to back to make the 5.

It was a wonderful Family Reunion.  I just wished I'd had more time to visit with all my relatives.  Somehow taking care of my own kids gets in the way.

Sunday finally arrived and it was time to pack up and head out.  I had one last childhood memory I wanted to relive.  We drove up the coast to see the Newport Beach Temple

I love the unique mission style architecture on this temple.  It is small but beautiful and you can see it really well from the freeway.

We then took a side trip to Balboa Island

We even rode the Ferry across.

As I was telling my kids how I rode this Ferry so many times as a teenager and we took pictures the cute family next to us asked their dad if they could take pictures.  He told them they rode it twice a week, there was no need for pictures yet.  We all got a good laugh out of that one.

As a young teenager I got to go to Balboa Island a couple of times with a family in our ward to help babysit their kids.  And we even had a Young Women's overnighter at their beach house.  It was on that trip we went roller skating and I fell and broke my wrist for the second time in my life.  I haven't roller skated since.

I told the kids about my favorite treat and they all wanted to try one.  So we stopped for . . .

Balboa Bars!  Best hand dipped ice cream bars you can get.  Jessica rolled hers in Oreos.  Ashley's was rolled in chocolate sprinkles.  John got an everything bar along with Mark.  And I enjoyed mine rolled in toffee along with my mom.  Why do all my memories involve food, hmm?

After that we headed out with an overnight stop in Vegas.  Then the longest six hour drive of the whole trip.  But we made it home safe and sound and loved all the memories we made as a family.

Beach Days

The whole reason for our California Trip was for our Family Reunion in Oceanside.  We stayed at a hotel right on the Marina.  Any time of day we could sit and watch the boats and sailboats go in and out of the Marina.  It had a beautiful view.  But we did have to drive to the other side of the Marina to get to the beach.  Unless you were like my cousin Ryan who swam across the Marina on his surf board!  The last time I enjoyed a true beach day was when I was 16 before we moved away from California.  I miss the beach.  I love the smell of the salt water, the sound of the waves, even the taste of the ocean water.  It was fun introducing my kids to the Ocean.

And I think the love it as much as I do now.

I could lay on the beach all day long

Mark on the other hand could not lay on the beach all day long

My kids had so much fun playing with their cousins on the beach

And I had just as much fun playing with my cousins in the water.  We had a blast jumping and diving around the waves.

And we even got Grandma on the beach for a little bit of the day.

And a trip to California would not be complete if we didn't go to a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant at least once.  We enjoyed a birthday lunch with my mom at Senor Panchos.

Disneyland Day Four

It is hard to believe, but yes, we really went to the Park four days in a row.  Disney was having a promotion and if you bought 3 day passes you got 5 day passes.  We were really glad for the extra days after having day 3 be so crowded.  We had a Magic Morning pass, so we were there by 7am to get in early.  We hit some of our favorite rides again.

This picture of Ashley tells it all.  We all felt like this, but we knew it was our last chance in a very long time to enjoy Disneyland, so we pushed through the tiredness to enjoy six more hours of Disneyland and DCA.  And we squeezed in another frozen banana along the way.  I love frozen bananas from Disneyland!

After finally leaving the parks for good we stopped in Tustin to have lunch.  My family was living in Tustin when I was born and we stayed there until I was five years old.  We drove by the house we lived in while we were there.

I would have never found it except for our trusty GPS.  The whole street looks nicer than it did when we lived there.  The neighborhood has been kept up really nicely.

I fell in love with Del Taco as a child.  This was the only fast food we ever had.  We had Tuesday Tacos because my mom was Primary President back when we had Primary every Tuesday afternoon so we'd get Tacos afterwards because they were cheap on Tuesdays.  Oh, the silly things you remember as a child.

And then we drove down the Coast and finally arrived at this.

This was our view out our hotel room in Oceanside.  I miss this view.

It doesn't get much better than this.  We could walk out our back door and stroll along this path.  There were 99 of us at this Family Reunion so the whole wing of the hotel was our relatives.  We all kept our back doors open so we could walk down and visit each other and enjoy the ocean breezes.

Yes it was crazy that almost all of us live in the same city in Utah and we all drove to California to be together, but I loved it.  I could finally relax!

And boy was I ready to relax!